Need to spice up your site? Try this unlikely resource for cheap and cheerful graphics!

Blog feeling a little blah? Site lacking in spice?

Here’s a little-known tip for giving your online presence some kick for minimal $$: pick up some lovely new graphics on Etsy!

Yep – I said Etsy. It may not be the place you normally think to go to for buying “digital assets” such as social media icons, header graphics, and fun background patterns, but you’d be surprised at what you can find there.

Check out some of my favorite Etsy treasure troves below, and be sure to keep reading for the scoop on how to incorporate these goodies into your site.

All The Adorables: Specializing in watercolor-style stuff, which I’m a total sucker for.

The Photospot: Funky, decoupage-style graphics that are like a wackier version of the art by Papaya.

Primp My Blog: Great for getting complete sets of blog or site graphics made, for cheap.

Lasagna The Cat: Offering up awesome “digital papers” that you can use for opt-in backgrounds or virtually anything else on your site.

How to find this stuff on Etsy
Unearthing these little gems is deceptively easy. Just search for “blog graphics”, “header graphic”, “about me” graphic, “social media icons” or similar at the top right of Etsy when you land on the site. You’ll be able to scroll through dozens of results.

And if you want a particular color or style, just throw it into your search term, and type in “yellow social media icons” or “vintage style blog graphics”.

Design tip: If you have a minimalist, black/white/grey site, adding solid-colored, highly saturated social media icons to your site is a foolproof way to punch it up. Just pick a shade you like (think hot pink, bright green or cobalt blue), search for it on Etsy (e.g. “hot pink social media icons”), and buy the graphics that speak to you. If you want a particular color that you can’t find on Etsy, you can usually “convo” an Etsy seller whose style you enjoy, and ask him or her to make some graphics in the color you’re lusting after.

Want to take a crack at this graphic design stuff yourself?
Check out my Pixlr tutorials (here, here and here) to get your feet wet – or enroll in The Girl’s Guide to Web Design to get more robust training in making graphics for your site or blog.

Can definitely vouch for Primp My Blog icons – they are so cute! And Kira is super helpful with giving instructions on how to load them for those of us who are a little bit challenged. It’s through her that I’ve found this page – which I will definitely be subscribing to! I’ve got the writing thing down pat, it’s just the everything else I need to learn!

But we only have space for two groups of 33 women to join us - so click here to get on board before all the spots are gone!

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